About 10,000 workers in the Columbus are are covered. The members still have to ratify the deal. Business First:

The Cincinnati-based company began talks with the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1059 on July 21 in anticipation of a contract set to expire Nov. 9. Kroger said the union will present the tentative agreement to members for ratification on Friday.

Health care, of course, was one of the main points of contention.

The Wexner Center for the Arts is going to present Andy Warhol: Other Voices, Other Rooms starting September 13. I caught Andy Warhol: A Retrospective at MOMA in 1989, just a couple years after his death. Great show. Pop Art, unlike a lot of art these days, is immediately accessible (as they say). That’s what makes it “pop.” Make sure you go, if you’re into that kind of thing at all. (Via Mad-Cow Town Forum.)

A small controversy developed when it came out that the ODP reserved a bunch of spaces for themselves:

Columbus public-service officials blocked off 35 meters this summer outside the Ohio Democratic Party’s Downtown headquarters, not as a courtesy to political allies but because a check for more than $7,000 bought the spaces through Election Day.

City officials said yesterday that Democrats didn’t get a special deal. The party paid 6 1/2 times what the meters usually bring in.

But they did acknowledge that selling off public parking for four months at a time is “unreasonably long.” Public Service Director Mark Kelsey plans to investigate, said Mary Carran Webster, the department’s assistant director.

Now Mayor Coleman wants to examine bulk reservations of public street parking.

If Columbus doesn’t have a policy governing who can reserve public parking spaces, Mayor Michael B. Coleman wants one.

And if a policy — new or existing — doesn’t allow the Ohio Democratic Party to buy time in bulk for the spaces outside its Fulton Street headquarters, Coleman said he wants orange “no parking” bags removed from up to 35 meters.

Yeah, I think public spots should remain public. But more importantly, why are all those Dems not taking public transportation? Next thing you’ll tell me is that all their kids are in private schools.

One fun aspect of this-according to the first link- is that if you park in one of those ODP-reserved spaces, no one will know that you’re not supposed to. There’s no list and no one’s enforcing. So go ahead and park there. At your own risk- don’t bring your parking ticket to me!

This applies to Columbus to a large extent:

But, even if the critics are mostly right–even if the vast majority of cities never see a downtown residential boom of massive proportions–there is no doubt that a demographic inversion, in which the rich are moving inside and the poor are moving outside, is taking place. The crucial issue is not the number of people living downtown, although that matters. The crucial issue is who they are, and the ways in which urban life is changing as a result.

There’s also some mention of the exurbs as slums by 2030, which I’ve heard before. (Via Instapundit.)

From Business First:

Dispatch Printing Co. in a filing with the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services posted Monday said tentative plans call for work-force reductions for its production operations at 5300 Crosswind Drive beginning Nov. 3. Targeted for cuts are 112 workers at the facility, most of whom are machinists or mailers.

Newspapers are not doing well. (Obvious statement of the day.)

From 10TV news:

Columbus Public Health officials said Friday that an area encompassing portions of German Village and the Brewery District had a pool of mosquitoes test positive for West Nile Virus.

The 43206 ZIP code joins ZIP codes 43211 and 43207, according to the health department.

It can kill you, but the good part is that most people won’t have any symptoms.

Magellan Mortgage and Highland Banc have been charged with violating Ohio’s predatory-lending laws:

The lawsuits allege that the companies arranged loans with undisclosed fees and the loans “resulted in no net tangible benefit for homeowners who had no reasonable ability to repay the loans,” according to a statement from the Ohio attorney general’s office and Ohio Department of Commerce, which filed the suits.

The companies’ actions violate the Homebuyers Protection Act, Ohio Mortgage Broker Act and Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, according to the state agencies.

German Village’s Oktoberfest is moving again:

Oktoberfest will take place Sept.5-7 at Genoa Park and Amphitheater, between the banks of Scioto River and COSI. It will run from 5 p.m. to midnight on Sept. 5, noon to midnight Sept. 6 and noon to 8 p.m. Sept. 7…

That’s not even in German Village. (Via RetroMetro.)

“Personal income in the Columbus area grew 5.5 percent last year, a number that was the best in Ohio but still below the national average.” (Link.)

Relatedly, Forbes has compiled a list of the fastest-dying US cities and four of them are in Ohio: Canton, Cleveland, Dayton and Youngstown. (I know, everyone’s already posted this.)

In my inexpert analysis, what Columbus has going for it is a good mixed economy, unlike other Ohio cities that are- or were- too dependent on manufacturing. Also, Columbus has one business that’s a perennial growth industry: state government.

Walker’s blogging about Experience Columbus’s forthcoming ad campaign, “Not in Columbus.” Example: “We don’t have the Eiffel Tower in Columbus” and then it lists things we do have- COSI, etc.

It seems kind of negative, but it isn’t the first use of irony in tourism ads. It reminds me of the old “Crazy” New York ads. “You’ve got be crazy to live in New York… crazy about museums.” And there’d be a different thing mentioned in each ad. (SNL satirized it with “crazy about sodomy.”) It was ditched for the “I [heart] N Y” campaign after much heartburn.

So, it can be funny, and it can also backfire. Here’s the ad campaign page.